The Guest List(87)

I move a little closer. I don’t know what to do with this feeling, this energy that is crackling through me, as though my veins have been fed with an electric current. When I put out a hand I see my fingers tremble with it. It frightens me and excites me at the same time. I feel that if I were to test it out, right now, I’d find that I have a new, unnatural strength.

Aoife steps forward. She passes a knife to Jules and Will. It’s a big knife, with a long, sharp blade. There is a mother-of-pearl handle to it, as though to make the whole thing look softer, to conceal its sharpness, as though to say: this is a knife for cutting a wedding cake, nothing more sinister than that.

Will puts his hand over Jules’s. Jules smiles at us all. Her teeth gleam.

I move closer still. I’m nearly at the front.

They cut down, together, her knuckles white around the handle, his hand resting upon hers. The cake cleaves away, exposing its dark red centre. Jules and Will smile, smile, smile into the phone cameras around them. The knife is placed back on the table. The blade gleams. It is right there. It is within reach.

And then Jules leans down and picks up a huge handful of cake. Whilst smiling for the cameras, quick as a flash, she smashes it into Will’s face. It looks as violent as a slap, a punch. Will staggers away from her, gaping through the mess at her as chunks of sponge and icing fall, landing on his immaculate suit. Jules’s expression is unreadable.

There is a moment of appalled silence as everyone waits to see what will happen. Then Will puts a hand to his chest, does an ‘I’ve been hit’ pantomime, and grins. ‘I better go and wash this off,’ he says.

Everyone whoops and cheers and shrieks and forgets the strangeness of what they just saw. It is all a part of the ceremony.

But Jules, I notice, is not smiling.

Will walks from the marquee, in the direction of the Folly. The guests have resumed their chatter, their laughter. Perhaps I am the only one who turns to watch him go.

The band begins to play again. Everyone spills towards the dance floor. I stand here rooted to the spot.

And then the lights go out.





OLIVIA


The Bridesmaid


He was right. I’m never going to tell Jules now.

I think about how he twisted it all around. How he made me feel it was my fault, somehow, everything that happened. He played on the shame he made me feel: the same shame I have felt ever since I saw him walk through the door with Jules. He has made me feel small, unloved, ugly, stupid, worthless. He has made me hate myself and he has driven a wedge between me and everyone else, even my own family – especially my own family – because of this horrible secret.

I think about how he grabbed my arm just now, by the cliff. I think of what might have happened if Jules hadn’t come along. If she had seen, everything would be different. But she didn’t and I’ve missed my moment. No one would believe me, if I told them now. Or they’d blame me. I can’t do it. I’m not brave enough for that.

But I could do something.

And then the lights go out.





JULES


The Bride


The cake wasn’t enough. It felt petty, pathetic. He has let me down, irrevocably. Like every other bloody person in my family. I overrode all of my carefully constructed security measures for him. I made myself vulnerable to him.

The thought of him smiling at me as we cut down, our hands joined on the cake. His hands that have been all over my own sister’s body, that have – God, it’s all too disgusting to contemplate. Did he think about her, when we slept together? Did he think I was too stupid to ever guess? He must have done, I suppose. And he was right. That’s one more small part of what makes it so insulting.

Well. He has underestimated me.

The rage is growing inside me, overtaking the shock and grief. I can feel it blossoming up behind my ribs. It’s almost a relief, how it obliterates every other feeling in its path.

And then the lights go out.





JOHNNO


The Best Man


I’m outside in the darkness. It’s blowing a bloody gale out here. It feels like things keep appearing out of the night. I put up my hands to fight them off. Most of all I’m seeing that face again, the same one I saw last night in my room. The big glasses, that look he wore in the dorm that last time, a few hours before we took him. The boy we killed. We both killed him. But only one of our lives has been destroyed by it.

I’m feeling pretty out of it. Pete Ramsay was passing stuff out like after-dinner mints – the effects are finally taking hold of me.

Will, that fucker. Going into the marquee like nothing had happened, like none of it had touched him: big fat grin on his face. I should have finished him off in that cave, I think, while I still had the chance.

I’m trying to get back to the marquee. I can see the light of it, but it’s like it keeps appearing in different places … nearer then further away. I can hear the noise of it, the canvas in the wind, the music—

And then the lights go out.





AOIFE


The Wedding Planner


The lights go out. The guests shriek.

‘Don’t worry, everyone,’ I shout. ‘It’s the generator, failing again, because of the wind. The lights should come on again in a few minutes, if you all stay here.’